Kingdom Dreamless
by ComradeSubmission
Summary: When a Kingdom Hearts fan takes an interest in the world of Lucid Dreaming, the effects on the rest of the world can be devestating...
1. Episode 1

Kingdom Dreamless

Episode One - Old endings and new beginnings

Every morning I wake up…

My name is Paul Davis. I am a regular 17 year old boy, I go to college and sit through the lessons. I go home and do any homework I might have got during the day then I play a few video games, my favourite is Kingdom Hearts, or watch some DVDs and occasionally some television, although there aren't many good TV programmes on these days. At the weekends I have a part time job at WHSmith, the pay is poor at $3.70 but it's enough to get by. At nights I often get together with some friends and check out the local pubs, parks or anywhere with people our age. There have been many Sunday mornings I've woken up with a headache because of those nights.

Every night I dream…

My name is Chaos. I am part of a group of lucid dreamers that practise lucid dreaming on an almost nightly basis. Lucid dreaming is when you realise you are dreaming, this gives you control of your dream body and the dream environment. For the past couple of years we have been working on getting in to a shared dream, it has been quite successful at times but can sometimes be a failure. I guess it depends on our will on those nights. We have been successfully lucid dreaming for the past 4 years, since we were 13. We consider ourselves masters of the art of lucid dreaming although many people would say we are a fluke. Our collective name is 'The Circle of Lucidity'. We have three members which include myself, Locke and 8-Ball. Locke's name in the waking world is Jonas London. Weird name, eh? 8-Ball's name in the waking world is Alan Rogers.

"Over here, Chaos." Locke shouted from the foot of one of the large skyscrapers.

We had successfully managed to get in to a shared dream again, and after a long time shaping the scenery in the dream, we decided to play a game of catch.

"Catch!" I shouted as I threw the small ball of energy toward Locke.

We had decided to make the scenery like a city. There were large metallic sky scrapers dotted throughout the landscape, a small park to the east and a road running through the city.

"Don't you guys ever get bored of this?" 8-Ball asked us, looking pissed off as always.

He had long black hair flowing down to his knees. He wore a lot of black. His current attire included a black shirt which looked kind of dirty, black jeans with chains hanging out of the pockets and hooking on to one of the random holes and big, black boots with too many buckles.

"Ah, shut up. You're just jealous that you throw like a girl yet we are way too manly to do that." Locke taunted.

Locke wore brighter clothes than 8-Ball. He was wearing a bright yellow t shirt, light grey trousers and brown trainers. He had short, scruffy blond hair and big blue eyes.

I wore the same as usual; my white t shirt, black hoodie, blue jeans and my yellow trainers. We usually wore the same in each dream, but Locke's yellow t shirt was new.

"I don't throw like a girl." 8-Ball defended his throwing.

"Prove it then." Locke said, throwing the ball to 8-Ball.

8-Ball caught the ball and looked at it. It was a ball of pure energy that I had made, I had been trying to perfect them for the past 2 years and nearly had them at exactly the right shape and weight. It was clear blue in colour, you could see straight through it yet you could also see your reflection.

8-Ball dropped the ball on the floor and watched as it disintegrated.

"8! You know how long it takes me to make those!" I shouted at him.

"I don't throw like a girl." He continued to defend himself.

"Yes, you do." Locke said.

"Isn't that a bit sexist?" I asked.

"Well, he throws like a girl." Locke continued to say.

He really does.

We were walking through the dream city for a while, perfecting anything that had gone wrong with it like trees that were out of place or things that had somehow managed to get upside down. We were walking along the road when a car nearly went straight into us but it stopped just in time.

"Whoa. Watch out man." Locke said, knocking on the window.

The window came down as an expression of shock came over Locke's face.

"Erm… Chaos. Come check this out."

"Why?"

"Just do it."

"Fine."

I looked through the window to see my face looking back at me.

"Why are there two of you here?" 8-Ball asked me.

"How should I know? I didn't a-" I realised something.

I put my head in and looked in the back seat, looking at my sister sat by herself.

"What? Why are there two of you? Is that one fake?" She asked, pointing at me.

"Wake up, Dee." I said to her, "You're dreaming about me driving again."

I hadn't got my license yet, and Dee had dreams about me driving since she and I were both a lot younger.

"What do you mean?" Dee said before she faded away, waking up in the waking world.

"Hey Chaos, why don't we have some fun with the other you?" 8-Bit laughed.

"Fun like what?" I asked, worried about what the answer would be.

Locke interrupted, "Let's see if he speaks first."

I slapped the other me on the head.

"Ow. You bastard." He said.

"This is gonna get confusing." I said, raising my eyebrow at Locke.

"Guys." 8-Bit tried to get our attention, we turned to see him fading away. "I guess I'm waking up. I'll see you both when you get back."

8-Bit disappeared, leaving me and Locke alone. 8-Bit could never manage to stay in the shared dreams as long as me and Locke could, he must have had poor willpower or something.

"What? Where did he go?" Locke said, I turned around to see that the other me had disappeared.

"That's weird." I made the obvious cleared, "Even for a dream."

"Uh… Chaos." I turned around again, just in time to catch the other me kicking Locke on the floor.

I punched the other me in the face, knocking him to the floor. Locke got up and smashed the car window, he threw me a piece of glass and I put it in my… his… the other me's neck and watched as he disappeared in a puff of smoke.

"I didn't know I was that violent."

I woke up shortly after Locke. I was Paul again.

"So you're back then." a voice came from my right, I turned to see Alan on the floor in his sleeping bag. I turned to my left and saw Jonas going back to sleep. That lazy bastard sleeps till noon, and that's on early days!

"What's the time?" I asked.

"Just gone 7." Alan answered.

"Okay. Well I'm just gonna… rest my eyes a little bit."

"Whenever you say that, it mean's you're going back to sleep." Alan's voice fell on deaf ears. I had already gone back to sleep again. I knew Alan wouldn't do the same, he likes to be an early riser to get things done. I figured he would probably turn on my computer and buy some more junk of the internet with my credit card so I had prepared a list of things he could buy for me and put it on the desk.

"Cheeky bastard." I heard his voice as I was sleeping.

"Chaos." I heard a voice, I was stood in a small dark dream environment. I couldn't see a thing.

"Who's there?" I called out.

The room lit up with an orange light. I was stood in another white room, quite common in my dreams. I looked around at the large Keyblade statues dotted through the room. It reminded me of Kingdom Hearts.

"Hey. That reminds me. I never managed to make Heartless appear before." I said, remembering it.

I put out my hand and made a dark hole appear in the floor. The most common type of Heartless in the game, a Shadow, crawled it's way out of the hole in the floor.

Then two more.

Then three more.

Then twenty five more.

"Uh… I only wanted one." I said, trying to make some of them disappear.

They wouldn't go though, they just crawled around as if I had no effect on them whatsoever. Worst of all, more kept coming through the hole. Even though I was not focusing on it any more, the hole kept spitting out more and more Heartless. As the what seemed like 300th Heartless came out of the small hole, I realised…

"Maybe if I close the hole up then they will stop coming through."

I put my hand up and focused on the hole. It closed soon after, but the Heartless were still there. It looked as though there were 500 of them, all packed in to the small room. I could barely look around. The Heartless began to tear the room apart quickly, taking chunks out of the wall.

"It's too late to turn back now." A voice said in my head.

"This is way too screwed up." I said to the voice, "What's happening?"

"You don't know yet."

The walls of the room crashed down to the ground and all around was darkness as the orange light dimmed. I felt a Shadow grip my leg. Then I felt more grip on to various areas of my body.

"What the hell?"

The Shadows were crawling all around me. I felt the darkness in my skin.

"What is this?"

A huge bright light appeared in front of my eyes, raining down on me and the Heartless.

"Who are you?" I shouted as I sat up in bed.

"Well, my name is Jonas. This is Alan." Jonas said, stood at the foot of my bed.

"Have a nightmare?" Alan asked, standing with his arms crosses across his chest.

"No." I lied. "What time is it?"

"9 in the morning." Jonas answered.

Me and Alan look over at Jonas, jaws hanging down.

"What? WHAT?" Jonas asked impatiently.

"You're awake!" I shouted at him.

"Well yeah, your shouting woke me up."

"Oh right."

"Now shut up while I try to get to sleep."

Jonas got back in his sleeping bag as I went over to the computer desk that Alan was typing at.

"You find my list?" I asked.

"Yep. I found a few of them on eBay and the t shirt on Amazon." Alan replied.

"Nice one." I said gratefully.

"I've been researching Dream God's too. I found a few references to them on ld4all, apparently they are insanely powerful and appear in dreams at random. There's nothing about what they look like though, which is surprising as one person claims to have had a small fight with one of them." Alan said, typing away at the computer.

"What about the Watchers?" I asked.

"Only one person has seen them." Alan answered, "He says they thanked him for doing a job of some kind, they didn't look human in appearance either."

"Try sending some PM's to these people. Tell them we're researching Dream God's and the Watchers and that we could use their help. If you don't get a reply within 3 days, PM them again. If you still don't have a reply see if their e-mail address is on there and send an e-mail to them about it."

"And then what?"

"Give them my Instant Messenger screen name, I'll talk to them about possibly getting into a shared dream."

"Isn't that gonna be hard? It took us three long enough to get a shared dream at will, and it took us insanely long to be in a shared dream where we could affect each other."

"We'll find a way."

"If you say so." Alan said coolly before clicking the mouse a few times.

I looked at the task bar at the bottom of the screen.

"You're on the Slipknot website?" I said to him.

"Yeah. What's wrong with that?" He answered.

I just stared at him.

"What?"

"Are you gonna stay awake now?" I asked.

"What's the time?" Jonas replied.

"Just gone 11."

"Then no. Goodnight."

Jonas went back to sleep quickly, he had this strange ability to just sleep at will. He could sleep for hours and hours at a time. We once considered doing a little experiment to see just how long he could sleep for, but we both had college so agreed to do it nearer to Christmas.

"He's such a lazy bastard." I laughed.

"I've sent those PM's. I sent them to the one guy who said he's seen the Watchers and to the four people who say they have seen Dream God's." Alan said to me.

"Okay, good. Has anyone replied to our post in the forum yet?"

"I don't know. Hang on, I'll just check."

Alan typed away at the keyboard as I looked around my room. I recently redecorated, the walls were now a dark red colour and the carpet was blue. I had black curtains over the windows. I hadn't realised how dark it looked until now.

"Two replies. One from some guy saying he wants to join the Circle, but he's just some newbie with 5 posts." Alan said.

"And the other?" I asked.

"From some girl who says she can also go in to a shared dream at will and wants to meet us."

"Move over." I said as I grabbed another chair, I logged out of Alan's account and in to my own. I replied to this girls post, her screen name was 'K4' which I found kind of unusual.

I typed in to the reply box; 'Add me to your Instant Messenger, my screen name is Riku2005, but that's commonly known on these forums. We can discuss a possible shared dream if you are as good as you say you are. Hope to hear from you soon.' and clicked the 'Post Reply' button on the screen.

The page came up and I read her message, 'Hey guys. I like the idea of a group of lucid dreamers, sound's cute So anyway, I can get in to a shared dream at will too. I've done it with a few friends before, but I've never tried to get three people in to one shared dream though. How about we try and meet up in a shared dream then? It could be fun ;-) K4'

3 hours later, Jonas was awake and K4 had added me to her Instant Messenger. I had been talking to her for the past half an hour and despite Jonas screaming "Cyber her! Cyber her!" I had managed to have a good chat with her. It turned out she lived about an hour away from me and she was 16, a year younger than I was. It was still quite early and she didn't have any plans, so she got on the bus and came to meet us. I thought that was kind of dangerous to do that but she seemed to think it was fine. I was amazed by this girl, she didn't even know us, had only spoken to me once on Instant Messenger for half an hour and was already arranging to meet us. I guess she was a bit too trusting. She told us she'd be at the bus station by about 4 so we went to meet her in Alan's car, a black Chevrolet. His dad was so rich it was unbelievable. They owned some big company up north and got all the money from it, Alan never told us what company it was though.

"What time is it?" I asked,

"Just gone 4:10." Jonas answered.

Alan turned to me, "How are we gonna know that it's her?"

"She said she'll be wearing a t shirt with a big purple eye on it." I answered.

A bus pulled up in the station and a whole heap of people got off, including our girl in the purple eye t shirt. I got out of the car and waved at her, I told her I'd be wearing a leather jacket so she knew it was me.

"Hey. You K4?" I asked her.

"Yeah, but call me Karolyn."

She had shoulder length blond hair and deep blue eyes. She was a bit shorter than me and was skinnier than most girls, but that didn't bother me. She had a white t shirt with a big purple eye on it and was wearing one of those red rara skirts and white trainers.

"I'm Paul." I said, I pointed in the car, "This is Alan and Jonas."

"Whoa." Jonas said, "She's hot."

He was right.

"Nice to meet you." she said with a small grin on her face.

"It's a little… odd that you came to meet us after we spoke for half an hour on Instant Messenger. How can you be sure you can trust us?" I asked her with concern.

"I can't." She said, walking over to the left door of the back seat of the car, "Do I sit here?"

She got in and I followed. I was a little concerned by how this girl was acting, it was as if she didn't care for her safety at all. I figured I would probably have to look after her while she was here, this town was full of creeps who would love to take advantage of a girl like her. Speaking of which…

"Look. Paulie boy's got a girlfriend." I turned around to see Harrison speaking. This guy was such a jerk, he was the size of a ten year old and thought he was the best thing around. He had blond hair and squinty little eyes, a real ugly bugger.

"Harrison." I said, "Hanging around bus stations now are you? I figured you were more of a junk yard kind of guy."

"You're so funny Paul, funny looking. How about you-"

Harrison was cut short in his speech when Alan threw open the door, knocking Harrison back. Alan got out of his car and smacked Harrison in the face, knocking him to the floor. He turned to see two cops coming toward him.

"Get back in the car." I shouted, Alan had a habit of hitting people at the wrong time. He wasn't very strong but knew how to surprise people enough to knock them down. He got back in the car and drove back to my house.

"So Karolyn," Jonas began, "Do you have a boyfriend?"

"Jonas!" Me and Alan shouted.

"What?" He asked as if he was surprised.

"What this little jerk means is; how long have you been lucid dreaming?" I asked Karolyn.

"Not long, about 3 years." She answered.

"And you can already do a shared dream at will?" I asked in shock.

"Oh yeah, that was kind of hard but I got the hang of it now."

"Alright then, I guess we'll do that later tonight."

"Right, it's Saturday. That means it's party night." Alan said, shaking his head, "I despise these nights so much."

"There's gonna be a party?" Karolyn asked, "Cool."

"Alan loves them really." I said with my hand ruffling his hair, "He just likes to hide it."

Alan pushed my hand away, "I hate them."

He really did hate them. Before me and Jonas got him drunk of course, then he became a whole different person. He would dance around like a mad man and we've had to stop him stripping a few times.

"Be careful tonight." I told Karolyn, "There'll be a lot of creeps there."

"I know how to look after myself." She said.

I smiled at her, then I realised something.

"Hey. You should check your PM's." I said to Alan, "See if that guy has replied to your PM about the Watchers."

"Oh yeah." Alan said, sitting at my computer desk. He clicked a few buttons, typed in a few keys on the keyboard and arrived at his PM box.

"He's replied. So have a few of the people who have seen the Dream Gods." Alan told me.

"What did he say?" I asked.

"Read it yourself." He said as he moved out of the way.

The message said, 'Hi. Yeah it's true I have seen the Watchers, they took me to a large room with a lot of computers and thanked me for doing some kind of job for them and that the job had been done. They looked really weird. They were like a hybrid of demons and aliens, not very pretty. I'd be interested in getting in to a shared dream with you for you to look in to the Watchers, but they haven't come to me since that one time so I'm not sure if I'll be much help to you.' The message was from a member called 'TreeMan98', a name I didn't recognise.

"The people who have met the Dream Gods say they have only met them once too and that they'd try to get in to a shared dream with us." Alan told me.

"Alright then." I turned around, "Let's get to this party then."

I grabbed my leather jacket and headed for the door, I stopped when I realised something.

"Hey. Where's Jonas?" I asked, I looked to the floor and got my answer when I saw him sleeping.

We arrived at the party, it was in a big house on the edge of town. We arrived at about 8pm, we figured we'd stay till about 1 then get back home.

"Hey, wassup girl?" I said when I saw Laura.

"Nothing much. Didn't think you'd show up tonight." Laura said to me as she put her arms around my neck.

"I never miss a party. You know that." I said to her.

She was about my height, brown eyes and light brown hair.

"I know, but I figured you might stay away as Harrison is here. I heard your buddy Alan gave him a black eye earlier."

"Well, tell him to watch out if he doesn't want another one."

"Will do, babe." She said as I walked away.

"Is she your girlfriend?" Karolyn asked quietly.

"Laura? Nah." I answered, "She's one of my best friends. I've known her since I was like 5 years old."

I walked around for half an hour and made my way through two cans of Stella, saying hi to everybody as Alan and Jonas found a table to sit at and Jonas got Alan drunk on some tequila. Karolyn went back to talk to Laura, she said she recognised her from some festival a few months back or something like that. I told her to call me if she got in to any trouble.

"Who's party is this anyway?" Alan asked groggily.

"Some guy called David or something." Jonas answered.

"Who's David?"

"I don't know."

"Do you know who David is?" Alan said, looking at me.

"Nope." I answered as I finished my fourth Stella.

"So why are we here?" Alan asked.

"Because it's a party, and Paul can get in to any party he wants." Jonas answered his question.

"You guys are lucky to know me." I laughed, "Otherwise you'd be at home right now playing Flashpoint."

"There's no need to diss Flashpoint." Jonas said defensively. Before he met me and Alan, all he did was play Flashpoint all day, every day.

"Flashpoint Shmashpoint." Alan said.

"What's he been drinking?" I asked Jonas.

"Tequila."

"Give me some then."

Jonas took another bottle out of his bag and handed it to me.

"Thank you." I said as I snatched it away and took a glass. I took a seat and poured a little tequila in to my glass. I decided it would be best and more sensible to drink it slowly, so I drank it quick.

I must have lost my bottle of tequila, I looked for it as I tried to stand on my feet without falling over but it was nowhere to be seen.

"Did you eat it?" Alan asked.

"How do you eat a bottle?" I laughed.

"By chewing it then swallowing it like other things like chickens." Alan answered before laughing hysterically. I didn't understand what he meant so I just gave him a little shrug.

"What's the time?" I asked Jonas.

He checked his watch, "It's just gone 10."

Alan said some incomprehensible muttering before we heard the thing that would make our night, the thing we looked forward to from an unfamiliar voice.

"Karaoke machine's set up."

Me and Alan looked at each other, a grin forming on our faces.

"Weeeeeeeeeee are the chaaaaampions, my frieeeeeends."

We decided to sing the Queen classic, 'We Are The Champions' tonight. We've always sang together whenever there's a karaoke machine nearby, but we have to get Alan drunk first.

We finished the song and bowed to our crowd, just then we heard some pushing to our rights.

"Look's like we have a couple of poufters here." Harrison said, nursing his black eye that Alan gave him earlier.

"Nice bruise, Arribon." Alan stuttered.

"What did you call me?"

"Arribon, Harrigon. Bollocks."

Harrison put his hand in his pocket as Alan struggled to say his name, he pulled it out and the crowd went quiet when they saw the knife he was holding.

"Now you're gonna pay for this bruise." Harrison said.

"Hey, dwarf boy." A voice came from behind Harrison, I looked behind him and the voice belonged to Karolyn.

"What did you call me?" Harrison said as he turned around.

Karolyn didn't answer, she just put her foot in Harrison's good eye. The knife fell out of his hand as he fell to the floor so Alan picked it up and ran out of the front door with Jonas, I grabbed Karolyn and followed. We fumbled the doors to find the handle and got in the car, Jonas drove as he was the only one who was sober and had a license. Harrison followed in his £50 car but we lost him fairly easily.

"That was a nice kick back there." I said to Karolyn, "Where'd you learn that?"

"My dad, he's a stunt man." she answered.

"Cool." I said, before falling asleep.

I was stood in a dark rectangular room, there were ropes coming down from the ceiling and wooden boards covering the windows.

"What is this place?" I asked.

I looked at my hand to make sure I was dreaming, when fingers started appearing I confirmed that I was. I was still unsure though as this felt different to dreams. It felt different to being awake too, though. It felt like nothing I had ever felt before.

I took another look around the dark room. I saw several statues of various people, a few I recognised and a few I didn't.

"You made a mistake." An all too familiar voice said, I looked behind me and saw a small cloaked figure. "Though it is understandable."

"Who are you?" I asked the small figure.

"The walls will soon collapse, as they did before. Do you remember?"

"Yeah, the dream where I made the Heartless appear and they tore the walls down right?"

"Correct… in a way."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You will find out soon, but there is something that must happen first."

"What? What will happen?"

"I can not tell you. If I do, you might try to prevent it."

"Why would I do that? Is it something bad?"

"Not bad, not good."

There was a slight pause before the figure spoke again.

"I wonder why it was you that was chosen."

"Chosen? By who?" I asked.

"The ones that you seek."

I had no idea what he meant. He seemed to be speaking in cryptic messages, I barely understood anything he said. But I had this feeling that I would understand, just not quite yet.

"Who are you?" I asked.

The figure turned around, under the cloak I saw something quite amusing.

It was Mickey Mouse.

"Why do you laugh?" Mickey asked.

"I'm just not used to seeing talking mice." I said, "Sorry."

"You should wake up before the walls disappear." Mickey said, then he jumped at me and the last thing I saw before waking up was his long coat flowing towards me.

"Ugh…" I said, waking up.

"Good… morning, I guess." Karolyn said.

"What time is it?" I asked her.

"It's just gone 2 am." She answered.

"That's early." I pointed out the obvious.

My vision slowly came back to me as I looked up and saw Karolyn and Jonas standing at each side of my bed. Jonas was fiddling with his hair while Karolyn was looking down at me.

"How you feeling?" She asked.

"Okay, I guess. Where's Alan?"

She pointed to my right, I looked down on the floor and saw the huge gaping hole that is Alan's mouth wide open while he slept. I couldn't help but laugh at the sight, but my laughter was soon cut short by the memory of the dream I just had.

"Mickey…" I mumbled to myself.

"Who's Mickey?" Karolyn asked. "Mickey Mouse?"

"Funny enough, yeah." I said to her.

She looked over at my desk and noticed my Playstation 2 and my copy of Kingdom Hearts sat next to it.

"Someone's been playing too many video games." She giggled.

"I had a dream." I said to her.

"Most people do."

"Mickey Mouse said something to me."

"Like what?"

"I… can't remember." I tried hard to remember what that little mouse had told me.

"I'm sure you'll remember later in the morning. Get some more sleep." She reassured me.

"Yeah. You're probably right."

"Well then. Goodnight. Oh, I hope you don't mind sharing your bed but I forgot a sleeping bag. Just don't try anything funny." She said before getting in to my bed. I can't say I didn't enjoy the closeness as I fell back to sleep.

"Hey." Karolyn said, "Look's like the shared dream worked."

I was stood in a large green field, several different types of flowers growing from the ground.

"How can I be sure it's the real you and not a dream you?" I asked.

"Well when we wake up, I'll say the word 'Exodus', then you'll know its me." She smiled.

" 'Exodus'? Alright then."

"I make this dreamscape a lot. I like the flowers and the wind."

A sudden burst of cold wind went over us. I thought this would be a good time to ask her about Dream God's and Watchers.

"I saw a Dream God once. It looked like a regular man, but it's power was incredible and it felt different to normal Dream Characters." She told me.

"Did it say anything? Or do anything?"

"It blew up a caravan I was about to get in to, I would have shouted at it but… it's power was just radiating from it's body. It was incredible."

"Never seen the Watchers?"

"No, sorry."

"Never mind. I'll find them myself one day."

"Good luck."

We laid down on the field and looked up at the sky, it was a strange shade of green. There were a few clouds which were purple and there was no sun yet the sky was bright. I wondered how long it took her to make this world in her dreams and keep it the same way. We talked in the dream for what felt like days, we just talked about ourselves and our lives. She had a fairly interesting life. Her father was a stuntman and her mother was a director, they were out of the country a lot so Karolyn lived with her auntie who was a professional ballerina.

"So that's my life story." She finished.

"Interesting." I said.

"Not really," she replied, "It might sound it, but it just seems so regular to me."

I laughed, and Karolyn soon joined in. Then I felt something. Something strange. Something out of place. Something dark.

"You have to wake up." I told her, without knowing how I knew this.

The sky began to crack apart, parts of it were falling down around us.

"What's happening?" She asked.

"Just wake up." I said sternly.

She faded as she woke up. I looked up to the sky as it was falling apart and watched as the Heartless came through the cracks.

"What did I do?" I asked myself.

I woke up asking the same question to myself.

"Exodus." Karolyn said.

"Huh?" I said, confused.

"Exodus. Now do you wanna tell me why the sky was falling apart and why you made me wake up?" She said angrily.

"Don't worry about it. You're safe now." I said.

"I'm bloody not." Alan said, standing at the door and holding his head. "You two are awake late."

I looked at the clock and saw the time; 11:00am.

"Well it's only Sunday. I got nowhere to be." I told Alan.

"Breakfast is ready." A voice came from the kitchen.

I looked around the room.

"Is that…?"

"Yep." Alan answered my question before I finished it.

I walked in to the kitchen and found Jonas setting the table for breakfast. Eggs, bacon, sausages and hash browns. My favourite.

"You're acting a bit generous, Jonas. You feeling okay?" I laughed.

"Well none of you were gonna cook, were you?" He raised an eyebrow.

I sat down and started to eat. Karolyn, Alan and Jonas joined me as we enjoyed our Sunday breakfast.

"You're cooking more often." Alan said, "That was amazing. How come you've never cooked for us before?"

"Because I thought you liked doing it." Jonas answered.

"No I don't. The only reason I cook is because Paul burns all the food and you're usually too lazy to cook." Alan frowned.

"I don't burn _all_ the food." I defended my cooking.

"Yes, you do." Alan and Jonas said at the same time.

The table broke out with laughter.

"And in national news, there has been a coma outbreak in sleep. It occurred last night while most people in the country were asleep. It seems that some people, currently the count is at 5, have slipped in to a coma while they were asleep." The news reader said, "Doctors are baffled and they have found no possible causes. The only thing that all people had in common was that they were all in REM sleep, which is the time that people dream."

Pictures of five people appeared on the screen. There were two men, two children and one woman.

"That's kind of weird." I said to the group.

"People will be scared to sleep now." Alan pointed out.

I remembered the dream from last night that me and Karolyn shared, how the Heartless just cracked through the wall in to the dream. I thought to myself, "Could this be similar to whatever caused the comas?"

My eyebrows raised as I remembered the dream with Mickey Mouse, he said I made a mistake and that the walls would collapse as they had done in the dream when I made all those Heartless appear. Several thoughts ran through my mind.

"Was that what happened?"

"Were they breaking down the walls of Karolyn's dream?"

"Is that what happened to the people in the comas?"

"Is this my fault?"

I began to sweat heavily.

I heard Karolyn's voice, "Are you okay?"

I looked up and saw Karolyn looking at me with a concerned expression on her face. Her hands were behind her back.

"I'm fine." I smiled as I lied. I couldn't help but think that I was somehow responsible for the coma's.

"I'm gonna go for a walk." I told everyone.

"Wait up. I'll come." Karolyn said as I headed for the door. "I have to get back to the bus station soon."

"Are you sure you're okay?" Karolyn asked as we crossed the road.

"Yes, I'm fine. I just need to walk in the fresh air to clear my mind." I assured her.

"Alright then, if you say so."

We had walked around for just under an hour, we were walking down a hill toward a main road.

"What time are you going back then?" I asked, trying to change the subject.

"I'm not sure. My auntie probably won't mind what time I'm back so I guess I'll just go when I feel like it."

I tried to listen to her, but I heard a loud ringing sound going through my head. I tried to shake it off but it wouldn't go, so I decided to just wait for it to go by itself.

That's when it caught my eye.

A small glimmer of light in the middle of the road caught my attention and distracted me from the ringing in my ear. I walked over to get a better look at it, but I still couldn't see it properly. I walked out in to the road and knelt down to pick it up. I put my hand out and grabbed it.

"Paul!" I heard Karolyn shout from behind me.

I turned around too late, the car hit me and I went flying across the road as Karolyn screamed my name.

The ambulance arrived quickly as I laid unconscious in the middle of the road. Karolyn phoned Alan and Jonas and they showed up quickly, they drove to the hospital and sat outside of the room the doctors were treating me in.

"Will he be okay?"

"We don't know yet."

"How's he doing?"

"His situation hasn't changed."

"What's up doc?"

"Still no change."

"Is there any change yet?"

"Not yet."

I laid there as they were treating my injuries. I was in some kind of deep sleep, I guess. I was dreaming while they operated, something the doctors were calling 'unusual' and 'an oddity' as well as other words I didn't quite understand, being in the position that I was.

"What's going on in there?" Alan asked.

"Well, he is in an REM state. This is a good sign." The doctor said.

"REM? So he's dreaming?" Jonas asked.

"Yes. It would appear so."

"Let me in there." Jonas said, trying to get past the doctor.

"I'm afraid we can't allow you in." The doctor blocked his path.

"You have to, I can get to him."

"He might not be able to hear you though."

"I can talk to him."

"He can't speak."

"You don't understand."

"Please just wait out here." The doctor ordered.

"Jonas. Let's just sit out here and wait." Alan said, comforting him.

"But I have to-"

"See if it works from out here first, then we won't have to cause any trouble." Alan whispered.

Jonas went back to his seat quickly and fell asleep. It was amazing how he could sleep at will at a time like this.

"Paul?"

No answer.

"Paul?"

Still, nothing.

"Maybe it didn't work." Jonas said to himself.

"Yes it did." I said, "And it's Chaos in here, Locke."

"Right." Locke said, "Paul- I mean Chaos, you have to fight this. You've got to live."

"I would like to." I said.

"So fight for your life then." Locke advised.

"I can't do my job that way. I understand what that mouse meant now."

"Mouse? Mickey?"

"Yeah."

"Mickey Mouse isn't real. It was just a dream."

"No. It felt different." I looked down, "It was different."

I realised what had to be done, and with that realisation I got the tool I would need to do my job. The Keyblade. It came out from the ground beneath me as holes appeared in the walls around us, releasing Heartless. I picked up the Keyblade and held it in front of me.

"I caused all this. These, the comas, I caused it all." I said, "So it's my job to finish it."

The Heartless came at us.

"Heartless?" Jonas said.

"No…" I answered.

"…Dreamless." Mickey jumped in front of us, swinging his Keyblade at the Dreamless, making them disappear in a puff of smoke. I joined in as more came through and Mickey told me what exactly they were.

"When you created those Heartless, it gave _them _the opportunity to create these; the Dreamless. The Dreamless break down the walls of peoples dreams and go from dream to dream, destroying them and putting the dreamers in to a coma, turning them in to Dreamless themselves." Mickey said, "You have to stop them. But first you have to make sure you don't disappear."

The wall to the south moved, revealing a large Keyhole.

The doctor approached Alan, Karolyn and a sleeping Jonas.

"I'm sorry…" He said, "Your friend has died."

I held up my Keyblade at the Keyhole. A burst of light shot out of my new weapon and slipped in to the Keyhole, sealing it from the Dreamless. My dream world had become safe, but everyone else in the world was still in danger. As the Dreamless left my dream world, my path was clear…

I would stop the Dreamless.


	2. Episode 2

Kingdom Dreamless

Episode 2 - Second Gear

The air felt dirty. Stagnant. It was as if somebody had taken all the life out of the air, turning it in to a lifeless void containing nothing.

At least that's how Alan, Jonas and Karolyn were feeling.

They watched, with my family and friends, as the coffin was slowly lowered in to the dirty hole in the ground on the cold, wintery morning. The majority of people were struggling. Struggling with many things; the realisation that I was gone, fighting back the tears, and just the whole worthless situation.

"He was too young," People would say, "His life was thrown away."

And then there was the confusion.

"What did he mean?" His three friends thought, almost simultaneously.

"What did he mean?" Jonas thought, "He would stop the Dreamless? They were just parts of his dreams; figments of his imagination though."

The sides of the coffin slid down against the dirt, causing some of it to fall on it. I couldn't feel it though. My body was no nothing; I had left it. It was useless to me now, nothing more than a lifeless puppet.

A tear crawled down Karolyn's cheek as she shivered in the cold, and silently dripped off of her face. It soundlessly hit the ground, as more tears began to appear.

My mother, my sisters, my friends, Jonas, Alan. They were all crying for me.

My coffin hit the dirty ground, in the dirty ditch, in the dirty graveyard. The priest began to talk; not that anybody could hear him. Everybody's focus was on the coffin.

The only thing that anybody could see was my little brown box.

The only thing that anybody could hear was the thump of my box hitting the ground.

The only thing that anybody could smell was the wood that my box had been carved out of.

The only thing that anybody could feel was the cold, hard wood of my box.

The only thing that anybody could taste was the dirt on all four sides of my box.

But they didn't know that my death was only the beginning of something much bigger. How could they? They hadn't gained the knowledge that I had. They didn't know the struggles taking place in the dream world.

The priest finished his words. It was over.

My grave would be covered with more dirt, sealing away my body for eternity.

Everybody walked away from my little hold in the ground, with a feeling of both completion and the feeling that something would never be complete.

The stagnant feeling in the air began to be lifted as the people walked away from my body. That would be all they would have to remember me; a sealed up hole and a rock.

It would be followed by a wake, like all funerals, and everybody would try to get on with their lives after that.

They didn't know that I was the only one who could save those lives that they would try to get on with, though.

"What the hell have I done?"

---

It was so hard to contain my thoughts, I was struggling to just be able to tell what colour the cave I was in was.

I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I instantly calmed down. My surroundings stopped looking like a blur, and gradually I was able to make out the cyan walls made entirely of rock, and the water droplets clinging to everything around me. The sound of the rushing waterfall suddenly invaded my ears, as though it hadn't been there before. The weird worm like creatures clinging from the roof of the cave, dangling from the slime that covered their body's came into focus. Then finally, the feeling of something that combined the properties of stones and sand beneath my boots hit me.

"What is this place?" I asked. My voice sounded larger than it had before.

"This is where I live." Mickey answered as he took his hand of my shoulder. The little mouse began to walk around the cave, touching the walls occasionally on his way round. "This little place has been a good home for me, and now you can share it."

I paused for a moment. "Did I do the right thing?"

He stopped and turned toward me. His big ears would have been moving, had there been any wind in this cave. "You did the only thing you could do."

"But what about all the people I left behind?" My head sprung up, I stared at Mickey. "Jonas, Alan, Karolyn… What about them?"

"Listen…" Mickey said. The cave appeared to get drier, it didn't look as wet as it had done before. "It's your fault that the Dreamless have been awakened, so you're gonna have to sort your mess out."

I hadn't expected him to be quite so harsh. My eyes widened in surprise, and my I could feel my jaw drop. His happy face had become a frown, another thing I hadn't expected of everybody's favourite mouse.

"It was going to happen to somebody regardless; but it happened to you." He turned away from me, narrowly missing me with his tail. "So now you're the only one that can stop them. I must admit, I was expecting somebody a little more… mature."

I felt a short burst of anger, which was quickly obliterated by the realisation that he was right. I was acting like a spoilt child. I was looking at it the wrong way; as a burden. But no, this wasn't a burden, it was an I_opportunity._/I I had been given the chance to do something that nobody had ever done before. I had become a part of the dream world, a pretty important part. But I still felt sad that I had been taken from the real world; from my friends.

"Will I ever be able to return?"

He didn't give an answer. He walked over to the other side of the cave, and put a finger on the wall. A small part of the wall began to glow. It began as a small ball, then grew and changed shape until finally it became the shape of a key. The wall began to crack at the symbol, the crack slowly slid up and down the wall, and then it slid open.

"This is where I keep my Keyblade." Mickey turned his head a little to his right, so I could just see his mouth beneath his coat. "And now it is where you keep yours."

I stood up and began to walk over to the wall. I looked inside the newly opened wall, and saw a pair of Keyblades.

There was mine; the gold handle, silver blade, and the small blue part that connected the two parts.

Then there was Mickey's; the silver handle, the gold blade, and the small red part that connected the two parts.

"Take it." He whispered, "It is yours, after all."

My hand instantly sprung up to my Keyblade. I willed it and it happened; there was no complicated process of using my brain, nerves and my bones. I had read about a similar feeling in a book, 'The Vampire Lestat' a few years ago, in which Lestat finds that he only has to will a movement and it will happen, much like what I had just discovered happens in the dream world.

I gripped the handle and pulled it from the wall. It felt light… weightless. My vision became brighter when I gripped it, as though a light had been turned on inside my eyes and I could see everything more clearly. Mickey pulled his own Keyblade from the wall.

"Good, you can see clearer with it too." He patted my back. "Now, let's test out that new vision of yours."

He put his hand out, his palm pointing into the middle of the cave. A black hold appeared in the ground, opening up slowly. I felt something dark and vicious come from the hole, and that's when he closed it.

"Look around." Mickey said, "Particularly around the rocks."

I scanned the room carefully, from left to right. Eventually, I saw it: A Dreamless. I felt like I didn't have time to think, so I immediately yelled at Mickey, "What am I supposed to do?"

"What do you think? Destroy it."

I ran at the dreamless, as it sprung itself toward me. I was quite amazed at how it was exactly the same as a Heartless from that game, 'Kingdom Hearts'

I stopped in front of it, wondering what the hell I was expected to do. Then it hit me; how I had seen it.

With my new vision, it appeared differently. Because everything around me was lit up, it stood out. Not only that, but it appeared darker than it should have done. This new vision was really quite handy.

"Ouch." I yelled out as it hit me. I really shouldn't have stopped to think. I had let it get a sucker punch in once, but it wouldn't happen again. It threw a punch at me again, but I slid on my feet to my right, and it went passed me. I held my Keyblade above me, up in the air, and brought it back down while aiming for the Dreamless.

I missed.

It had gone through my legs and around to my back. I turned to meet it's evil gaze, staring at me. It launched itself into the air, appearing to fly, and dove back down for me. I barely escaped its attack, just rolling to my left to avoid it.

I had one knee on the ground, and one foot on the ground, and I swung my Keyblade horizontally, hoping to hit it. I missed again, it just ducked out of the way.

I was hit by another realisation; I wasn't worn out. Normally, I'd be tired from this fighting, but not in the dream world.

And then I was hit by another punch, throwing me on to my back. The Dreamless jumped on to my chest, but I wasn't finished yet. My left hand met it's face repeatedly until it finally slid to my right. I got up quickly, but not quicker than the Dreamless had done.

It was like a little bag of energy, but the energy seemed to be endless. I was in awe at how quickly it moved, and with how much intelligence it seemed to work with.

It came to hit me as I was thinking, but luckily this time I managed to duck beneath its attack.

Why wasn't Mickey helping me?

I ran at it again. Missed. It came at me again. Dodged. I ran at it. Missed. It came at me again. Dodged. It began to seem like an endless cycle. A very I_tedious_/I endless cycle. I was getting very irritated by the little shit. I just couldn't land a decent hit on it. I opted for something different in my next attack though.

I ran at it, holding my Keyblade above me. I focused all my energy on to what I was going to do. I kept thinking 'I think it's possible. This is the dream world, after all.' And it was possible; I ran right through it. I quickly turned around and swung my Keyblade at it.

But still, it wasn't enough. It jumped in to the air, dodging my attack. 'That was just bad luck,' I though, 'I'll get it next time.'

The fight continued as it had before. I was building up my energy to repeat my last attack.

The tedious cycle recommenced. That was it; I was sick of it now. So I thought to myself…

'What would I do if I was playing Kingdom Hearts?'

That's when the idea came to me.

I ran at it again, and repeated my trick of going through it. I turned around and swung my Keyblade at it.

Again, I missed. It jumped in to the air away from my attack.

It was going exactly as I had planned it.

"STRIKE RAID!" I shouted through the cold air of the cave. I pulled the Keyblade back, and then threw it forward at the Dreamless. It's eyes widened as it was torn in two, straight through the middle.

The two parts of it fell to the floor, and then disappeared in little bubbles of darkness which eventually disintegrated within a second or two.

"Good. It looks like it worked." Mickey's voice came from behind me.

I turned around in shock, I had almost entirely forgotten about him. "What worked?"

He was silent for a while. Eventually he spoke again.

"I'll explain it."

---

I was hugely shocked by the explanation. I hadn't expected that at all. To think that that had been going on for all these years. It was definitely a shock to the system. Still, there was nothing that could be done about it now.

"Oh, there's something else I must show you." Mickey said to me, pointing toward the waterfall. "On the other side of that waterfall."

I followed him through as he walked out on to a tiny stream, which grew and grew in to a river, which grew and grew in to an ocean. For as far as I could see was the huge ocean with rivers and streams spreading out from it. On either side of the stream though was a small part of ground, the same kind that had been inside the cave. I stepped to the right side, and Mickey stepped to the left.

"This is the heart of the dream world." Mickey began to tell me. "This is where everybody's dreams are connected, and where the Dreamless live."

I suddenly noticed a large ball above me. It was a giant ball filled with darkness, so I made the correct assumption that that was where the Dreamless lived.

"Every time a person has nightmares which they awake from, that nightmare separates from the sub consciousness and becomes darkness. That's when they come here."

The stream next to the one I was in began to grow larger, that was when I noticed the small sliver of darkness flowing through it. It eventually reached the ocean as Mickey continued to talk.

"It is sucked in to that ball, where it is transformed in to a Dreamless."

Exactly as he said, the darkness from the stream began to flow in to the giant ball above until it disappeared in it's darkness.

"And when you made that hold for the Dreamless to escaped, you created a path for them to go up the stream and in to dreams."

A Dreamless was thrown out of the ball. Mickey put his hand up to signal me to stay back as I watched it crawl up the third stream to my left.

"Shouldn't we go after it?" I asked, confused by Mickey's reasons for stopping me.

"Your training is incomplete. You may be good at the fighting part, but you are not yet fully trained with it. There is also much I must teach you about your new vision." Mickey said to me, "And besides…"

He pointed to the stream, it quickly dissolved.

"He's just woke up."

"Alright then, let's speed up my training. I don't want anybody else becoming comatose because I'm too slow."

"I was going to train you fast anyway, of course." Mickey smirked.

We both turned and went back in to the cave. That's when I began to train to defeat the Dreamless.

It felt like years, though it was probably only a couple of weeks in real world time. I constantly wondered if whoever that Dreamless had gone to attack was alright.

I doubted it.

Finally, after the second week, my training was complete. I could now wield the Keyblade just as good as Mickey, and my light vision was brilliant.

"Alright, I think you're just about ready." Mickey said to me, with a slight smile on his face. "Let's go see if that stream is still alright."

We walked out of the cave. The ocean was still exactly the same as it had been two weeks before. We both looked at the stream we had seen the Dreamless go in.

"Yep, it looks fine." Mickey sighed in relief.

"How can you tell?" I asked.

"When it's not fine, the stream becomes full of blood."

I didn't know what to say to that, so I said nothing. There was only one word in my mind though; Ew.

I noticed something I hadn't before. At the end of the stream we were in, at the point where it became a river, there was a large construction floating in it. It was multi coloured, and appeared to be made entirely of blocks.

"A… gummi ship?" I pondered.

"Close, but no cigar." Mickey said, "Speaking of cigars…"

He fumbled through his right pocket, and pulled out a large cigar. It lit instantly, without any fire, and he put it between his lips.

"So what is it then?" I grew curious.

"A gummi boat." Mickey blew out a cloud of smoke. "We use it to get up in to the ocean, and to go up the rivers to get to peoples dreams. Let's go."

The gummi boat felt hard and cold, and was the shape of a small pirate ship. Mickey told me that he named it 'Steam Boat Willie.'

He wasn't impressed when I jokingly said it was familiar.

It was a surprisingly long journey through the ocean to the river. I noticed a lot of weird birds and fish though. There was dogs with gills and no legs, worms with wings, cats with fins and monkeys with beaks. Those were the least weird of them, too.

"Mickey…" A thought had just crossed my mind. "Am I the first one to do this?"

"The first and the last." He put out his cigar. "If you fail, both the dream world and the real world will be doomed. We'll all be sucked in to the Dreamless world."

"What?" I was stunned, yet again. "There's a Dreamless world?"

"Of course. That ball up there is the door in to it." His eyes stared right in to me. "Through that ball is their world."

"And nobody's thought of going in to it and destroying it?"

"Anybody who goes near it is destroyed," Mickey answered, "Or at least, that's what appears to happen to them."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well, they're either destroyed or they are turned in to a Dreamless. Nobody can know for sure but them."

Again, I was shocked.

"Try not to think about it too much." Mickey said. "We've arrived."

I looked up, and sure enough we were there. We jumped out of the ship and ran through the waterfall, Keyblade in hand.

It was complete chaos. The dream had become like a wasteland, covered in red sand for miles and miles with craters dotted throughout it in random places. I instantly knew who's dream this was though; Alan's.

I don't know how I knew, but I knew.

"Mickey, this is Alan's dream." I grabbed his shoulder.

"Alan? Your friend? Alright then, let's go."

We began to run, not knowing where we were going but still running. After an hour, we spotted something coming toward us; a vehicle of some kind. We ran toward it, not sure what to expect.

"Hey! Who are you two clowns?" A loud, quite irritating voice went through my ears. I immediately recognised it though, it was the same voice that belonged to Daxter from the Jak games.

"Jak and Daxter?" I said in shock.

"Yeah, who's asking?" Jak jumped out of the vehicle in front of me. He look exactly as he had in the last part of the Jak games, Jak 3. He had his tall blond hair and his green beard, and his peculiar armour.

"I'm Paul, this is Mickey." I introduced us.

"Paul?" Another voice came from the vehicle. "Is it really?" I immediately recognised that voice, too.

"Alan!" I shouted as he jumped out of the vehicle. He was no dressed in the same clothes that Jak was wearing, but other than that he was the same.

"Paul. But aren't you dead?"

"Only in the real world. Here I'm alive. More so than I ever was in the real world, perhaps."

It's then that it hit me. This was Alan's dream. That meant the Dreamless were here.

"Alan, have you seen any-"

"Heartless? Yeah." He said, "Why else do you think we came so far out?"

"They're not Heartless." I told him, "They're Dreamless."

"Paul… You feel it?" Mickey interrupted.

"Yeah. They're close." I answered. Mickey had taught me to feel the presence of the Dreamless, since they were purely darkness it wasn't hard at all really.

"Let's go." Mickey said. He looked at Jak. "Is there room for us in there?"

"Yeah." Jak answered. "Get in."

"Oh geez! We gotta put up with more of 'em? Are ya tryin' 'a kill me, JAK?" Daxter started yelling, but was quickly shut up by Jak with a hand to his mouth.

We all got in the vehicle as Dreamless began to appear.

"Damn." Jak said, "Two of you take the guns, I'll handle the driving."

"Guns won't do any good." I said, "Only the Keyblade will kill them."

"But the guns can hold them back. You and Alan get the guns, I'll take care of any that get on the car." Mickey suggested.

"Right." I turned and nodded to Alan.

"Sure." Alan said as he stood up and held on to one of the guns. I was already holding mine, since I had been trained to be quicker.

We were completely surrounded by Dreamless, though our bullet's were doing a good job of putting dents in them. Jak's driving skills were also superb, the bumps that were the Dreamless being crushed under the wheels didn't even phase him. Mickey was also doing a good job of getting rid of any Dreamless that got on to the vehicle too.

All was going smoothly till a giant worm shaped Dreamless started chasing us.

"Both of you; shoot it. I'll drive as fast as I can." Jak yelled over the sound of gun fire. "Mickey, you'll have to handle the rest of the Dreamless for now. Think you can do that?"

Mickey lit up another cigar. "Of course."

He did handle himself quite well, actually. His moves were so smooth, and everything he did just seemed to flow together. He could take out three Dreamless within one second, when he needed to. This all left me a bit baffled though; with his skill, why did he need me?

I didn't have much time to think about it though, thanks to the - at least - 50 foot Dreamless worm coming toward us. Our bullets seemed to do nothing until we stopped shooting and saw it's Itrue/I speed. We then continued to shoot it, of course.

"Jak, go faster!" He could barely hear me over the combined sounds of the gun fire, screeching Dreamless and the vehicle. This was beginning to look a bit like a lost cause. I thought for sure we were finished.

"Paul." Mickey's calm voice fell on my ears, "Get your Keyblade."

"What about the guns?" I was more than a little confused. If I stopped shooting, it would only reduce the time it took for us to be eaten by the worm monster.

"Just get your freaking Keyblade."

I nodded, and materialised the Keyblade in my hand.

"Jak, when I say so; brake." Mickey's second command came.

"Are you freaking insane?" Jak and Daxter shouted at the same time.

"Just trust me."

So Alan continued shooting as I waited. I didn't know what I was waiting for, but I was waiting all the same. Jak kept looking back as the giant worm thing got closer, and closer, and closer, until…

"Brake!" Mickey yelled out.

I only just noticed that the sun was setting.

Jak brought the car to a stop, but the worm didn't even slow down. Eventually it reached us, and all I remember was putting my Keyblade up to it, and it disappeared.

---

"You see, Paul, there's something you can't learn in training." Mickey gazed in to the campfire. "And that's just how important and powerful that Keyblade is."

I nodded. I hadn't realised that it held that much power until I destroyed that worm thing with it. The idea that that power was now mine sent a shiver down my spine.

"So what now?" I asked. We had set up camp in the desert while we tried to figure something out. "Where do we go from here? How can I stop the Dreamless from sending Alan in to one of those comas?"

"The Key hole." Mickey answered.

I gave Mickey a look. He knew what it meant; I didn't understand.

"You know… Jonas mentioned something about a Key hold, and I found one here." Alan informed us.

"Good, that saves us a bit of work." Mickey said, "Where is it?"

Alan replied, "Well, I guess it would be about forty miles south of here."

Both me and Mickey could feel it; the Dreamless were back.

"Everyone back in the car." I instructed, "We better go as soon as possible."

Mickey nodded, and everyone got in the car.

We took the same roles as before; Jak was driving, me and Alan were on the guns, and Mickey took out any Dreamless that got too close. It only took us about thirty minutes to get to the Key hole.

It was about the size of my Keyblade, which made perfect sense.

"Wait, Paul. We have to get rid of at least some of the Dreamless first." Mickey told me, "If you get attacked while you're sealing the keyhole because your guard is down, it will all be over."

"Right," I nodded, "Let's get rid of some Dreamless then!"

We all jumped out of the car and began to fight off some of the Dreamless except Alan. If they defeated him, then we couldn't be sure about whether or not it would send him in to a coma, or worse…

"Keep your head down!" I shouted to him. It wouldn't have helped though, the Dreamless would have sensed him regardless of whether or not they could see him.

A Dreamless launched itself at me. I quickly rolled to my right and stood back up again, then my Keyblade finished him for good. Mickey had two Dreamless against him, but even two were no match for him. He cart wheeled over the top of one of them and dug his Keyblade in to it, before quickly spinning around and taking the head off the second attacker.

I gave him a thumbs up "Nice moves."

"Thanks."

There wasn't enough time for talking though, I was now facing two of them myself. The first one jumped at me, so I kicked it in the face sending it back to the ground. The second one had managed to get behind me though, and was gripping my back. I grabbed it's head and pulled it up and over my head on to the floor, then I put my Keyblade through it. The other one went through my legs, tripping me up one of his feet while it went. After I feel to the floor, I turned around just in time to put my Keyblade through it.

"This is easy." I cockily joked to Mickey.

"Dammit. Now we got Metal Heads, too!" Jak said from the north.

He was right. There were about five Metal Heads coming in our direction. Even worse was the fact that for each one of them were another five Dreamless joining them, I wasn't sure we could cope with this crowd.

"What the hell are they DOING?" Daxter's load, obtrusive voice could be heard again. He was right to be alarmed though, the Metal Heads and the Dreamless were acting peculiarly.

The Dreamless were wrapping themselves around the Metal Head's limbs and heads, and the Metal Head's appeared to be absorbing them in to their bodies. We weren't just facing Metal Heads now; we were facing Dreamless Metal Heads.

They were a bit taller than normal Metal Heads, and were covered in darkness all over their body. They were undoubtedly stronger too.

IBang/I

"What was that?" I looked around.

Then I saw Jak holding his morph gun, standing in front of one of the Dreamless Metal Heads who had just been sent crashing to the floor.

"I'd like to see Ratchet do Ithat/I" Daxter joked. There wasn't much time for joking though, the Dreamless Metal Head quickly got up and charged again.

One of them came at me, I grabbed it's claws and threw it behind me, using my foot to push it. I turned around and it had already got itself back up and was throwing itself at me again. It pushed me to the floor and starting hitting my face.

The feeling of having your face beaten in was odd in the Dream world. It was as though your head really was knocked off, but at the same time not.

My knee met the beasts stomach and it rolled over.

"Paul!" Mickey shouted at me, nodding toward the Key hold. There was a Dreamless creeping toward it.

"Damn!" I shouted. "What the hell am I gonna do?"

I had a plan though. The Dreamless Metal Head ran at me again, but this I ran at it too. Just before we collided, I threw myself up in to the air and over my opponent, landing myself just in front of the Key hold where I pushed my Keyblade in to it before the creepy Dreamless had the chance to get to it.

I twisted my Keyblade and listened to the clicking noise. I had succeeded in locking it.

---

We eventually got rid of all the Dreamless Metal Heads. It did take a while though.

Daxter had begun to tell the story of how Ihe/I took out the last one, though we all really knew it was Jak. I had walked off though, and was sat on my own now.

"So you're never coming back?" Alan asked me, taking me by surprise.

"I don't think I can." I answered, sensing the sadness in him.

Silence for a while.

I eventually broke the silence, "Hey, have you seen Karolyn lately?"

"You don't know?"

"Know what?"

"She's in a coma. I thought you might have known."

I suddenly had a very bad feeling in my stomach.

When had this happened? Why didn't I know? How could I have stopped it? Questions were racing through my mind.

"I have to find her then, and save her." I stood up from the ground and rubbed the sand off myself. "I'll do it right away."

"Let me come with you." Alan said, "At least until I wake up. And then I can come back when I'm asleep again."

"You can't you'd just be in danger." I thought for a moment. "But perhaps there is a way a part of you can come with me."

I nodded over at Jak & Daxter. Jak had been a huge help in our previous fight, and since he was kind of part of Alan, I wanted him to come along.

"Okay." Alan replied, and instantly Jak & Daxter became a ball of light.

"What the hell?" We both cried out.

"Relax." Mickey said, "It's nothing bad."

The light flew over to Alan and put itself in his hand. It began to unfold and took shape. It was a Keyblade.

Alan stared at it for a while, unsure of what it meant.

"Here," Alan said, "It's yours."

I looked at it. It was the same shape as my Keyblade, but it was a warm red colour all over and it had the word "Friendship" in gold letters on it.

I took it, of course. This was a part of Alan, so I wanted it with me.

"Thank you." I looked him in the eye. "Now I have to go save Karolyn."

"Alright. Bye for good, I guess." He wiped a tear away.

I just nodded.

---

Me and Mickey began to walk back to the Gummi boat, and then I realised something.

I stopped in a state of complete shock. I think I forgot to breathe. I was shaking all over, so much that it was hard to stand up.

"What's wrong?" Mickey shouted, "What the hell?"

"Mickey," I answered, "I think I know how to save them."


	3. Episode 3

Kingdom Dreamless

Episode Three - War

**bwar/b** ( P )(wôr)  
I_n./I_

1.a.A state of open, armed, often prolonged conflict carried on between nations, states, or parties.

1.b.The period of such conflict.

1.c.The techniques and procedures of war; military science.

2.a.A condition of active antagonism or contention: I_a war of words; a price war._/I

2.b.A concerted effort or campaign to combat or put an end to something considered injurious: I_the war against acid rain._/I

"War does not determine who is right - only who is left." Bertrand Russell

---

It had been a long time since me and Alan had last parted. I had begun to miss him more than I previously had, but that feeling - that loneliness - didn't take my mind away from my goal of saving Karolyn. Me and Mickey had been coming up with our plan since then, perfecting it slowly, and recruiting dream people from Dream Worlds that I had recently saved. We know had what one might consider to be an army; but it still wasn't enough. It would never be enough.

What we need- no, what we I_required_/I to end this war with the Dreamless could not be gained through how many thought up characters we took out of peoples dreams - no, that would not do. Mere numbers could not win this war.

What we need was a weapon.

We had worked on the plans for the weapon for a long, long time. It would need something that was very common around here, but could only be used for our purpose in their purest form: Dreams.

Purest… What exactly is "purest"?

Good dreams, not nightmares. That was something that couldn't easily be found any more. The Dreamless were having an adverse affect on people, giving them cruel nightmares. Then there were those who were to scared to sleep for fear of slipping into one of the comas that they had heard about on the television.

One of the comas that Karolyn had slipped into.

We hadn't had much time to train lately, either. Considering I was now using two Keyblades, the Kingdom Key and the Friendship Key, I really should have been training more than I was. Still, beating on Dreamless while I was saving Dream Worlds was good practice, right?

Mickey didn't seem to think so.

'You need to train more,' he said.

'Your skills are inefficient,' he said. He seemed to have forgotten that he was supposed to be the one training me.

Then there was the constant modifications we were having to make to Steamboat Willie, Mickey's Gummi Boat. When ever we used it, it came back with several large chunks missing thanks to the Dreamless, so we were constantly fixing her up. That wasn't it, though; we were also trying to build the weapon to beat the Dreamless on to it. Speaking of the weapon, perhaps I hadn't explained that very well before.

The function of the weapon (named 'Bahamut I') is to shoot large, concentrated amounts of pure dreams, also called light dreams because of the high concentration of light within them, into that big ball of Dreamless floating in the sky, above the Stream of Dreams. See, I figured that there must have been some connection with that ball and everybody's dreams, as the Dreamless were so efficient at going from their ball to those little caves that contained our dreams. Mickey agreed on this point, so we decided to build our weapon. What would our ammo be, though?

The purest of dreams: A child's dream.

This would be our greatest source of light, and the ammo we would use to defeat the Dreamless. To think that a child could be the key to winning a war… I had learned to live with insanity like that.

Using dreams to build a weapon wasn't as complicated as it sounded. You see, when you become part of the Dream World, as Mickey and I have, you see more in dreams. There is a substance in all our dreams, which we call, quite simply, "Dream Substance." This is the building blocks of our weapon.

---

'Are you okay, pal?' Mickey snapped me out of my stupor. I felt like I was dreaming within a dream, except I could no longer dream, so I couldn't have been.

'Yeah, fine. I was just thinking about all of this.' I stood up. I hadn't realised it until now, but my back was soaking wet from where I had been sat against the walls of our little cave. 'Thinking about what will happen after we finish this thing.'

'_IIf/I_ we finish this thing,' Mickey corrected me.

I was shocked; I expected him to have more faith in me. 'Mickey, I'm not going to fail.'

He didn't respond. 'Let's go.' He put his long leather coat on, summoned his Keyblade, and walked to the stream. I quickly followed after summoning both of my Keyblades.

Using two of them was a lot different from using one. It was easier and harder at the same time, yet oddly enough it wasn't any heavier. When I consulted Mickey about this, he didn't seem very interested. In fact, he wasn't interested in much these days; he seemed distant, as if he was always in deep thought about something. We both jumped into Steamboat Willie. The Gummi Boat was cold on our feet, despite wearing our boots.

'You might want to be careful in the Dream World we're about to go to.' Mickey didn't usually speak on the Gummi Boat.

I raised an eyebrow. 'And why would that be?'

'Well…' I saw something I clearly wasn't meant to; Mickey had a small grin on his face, 'I know how much you hate-'

'Christmas?' I shouted. 'What the hell is this?'

'You're asking the wrong question,' Mickey hinted at something I was obviously unaware of.

'What are you talking about?'

'You shouldn't be asking what, you ought to be asking "Who?"'

I looked around, puzzled. All I could see was this stupid Christmas dream world. There were prancing reindeer, dancing Santa's, big ugly trees, and the whole place was full of snow. I have to admit, though; the red houses with snow all over them were quite cute.

Then I saw it.

'A child! This is a child's dream!'

'Welcome to five minutes ago,' Mickey said, sounding bored.

'Hey, did you just make a funny?' This wasn't the first time Mickey had shocked me today.

'I guess I did,' the mouse replied. 'Let's go and have a little chat.'

We approached the child. He was a small boy in a red woolly jumper and baggy blue shorts. Strange clothes. He was wearing a grin that looked like it had been plastered on, and had blond shaggy hair and big blue eyes.

'Hooray! It's Mickey Mouse! Just what I wanted for Christmas! What's this big key you're holding? Can I play with it? Huh?' He was now at least two foot in the air. I remembered never to touch Mickey's Keyblade.

'That was a little harsh, wasn't it?' I whispered as the boy landed with a thud.

'I hate it when people touch my Keyblade,' Mickey replied, 'And remember, don't tell him that this is a dream. He'll get too excited and wake up.'

I sighed. 'All right.'

'Hey, what was that for?' The boy asked, looking and sounding as if he were about to cry.

'Nothing, nothing. Sorry, kid.' Mickey forced a smile on to his face. 'Me and my friend are here to visit.'

'Yay!' The kid's shouts made my ears bleed, I swear. 'I'll go tell all my friends and we can eat bacon!'

With that, he ran away, and I was glad to see the back of him.

'Can we run away from him, now? We don't really _Ineed/I_ his help, do we?' I was a little too hopeful.

'That's true. Let's go find some Dream Substance, hopefully it will be exactly the kind we need.'

'How about we kidnap a couple of reindeer to help us?' I joked.

Mickey didn't like jokes, though. 'No,' he said with a sternness I had come to expect of him. I really wish he was more like his television character in the real world.

---

'I b**HATE**/b Jingle Bells!' I threw a snowball at the bell in the church tower. Amazingly enough, I had one hundred percent accuracy, and hit my target.

Mickey's grip on his Keyblade tightened. 'So do I,' he growled. The singing children all looked each other, and ran.

'Three hours and still no Dream Substance. Are you sure this kid is "pure" enough to have it?'

'All children begin life completely pure, and thus their dreams are pure. Of course we'll find some eventually.' I got the feeling that Mickey was trying to reassure me.

'I heard it was the other way round. "Original sin," and all that.' I shrugged. Then I thought I heard Mickey whisper 'Baka' beneath his breath.

'I have an idea,' Mickey said, before I could ask if he had said anything. 'Let's look in the church.'

I thought about it for a second. I guess it did make a little sense to look in there. Before I could agree, though, Mickey had already begun his walk to the large church doors. He didn't make it, though.

There was a loud crash, and the doors flung open. One of them landed on top of Mickey, sending him at least ten feet backwards, and knocked him out.

'Mickey!' I shouted, ignoring the source of what had just happened.

Nobody else was ignoring it, I quickly realised when everyone who was stood around the church ran past me, fleeing. I looked toward the church, and as the dust began to settle, I saw one of the strangest things I've ever seen.

There was a giant Dreamless version of Santa Claus. It was at least thirty foot tall, and was wearing all the stereotypical Santa clothes. It's huge yellow eyes seemed out of plan in the jolly Santa costume, or perhaps it was really the white fluffy beard that seemed peculiar. Not that I had a lot of time to think about it.

It's dark influence had obviously invaded the reindeer, as they had turned into Dreamless reindeer and were no running at me. I had no choice but to summon my Keyblades.

I swiped my Kingdom Key through the first two, slicing the reindeer on my right first, then the one on my left. I then had to turn quickly, and sliced another two on the left with my Friendship Key. The another two on my right with the Kingdom Key. Then three from all kinds of directions with the Friendship Key, and then another one with the same Keyblade.

I turned around quickly, and pushed the two Keyblades past my body so they were pointing away from my back, and managed to kill five before they realised what I was doing. I took another two out by slicing their legs off, then beheaded three in one swoop of my Kingdom Key. I used both Keyblades to take the head off one of them, then as they swung backwards they managed to hit another two.

The Dreamless Reindeer began to get smart, and come up with some better tactics. They were now coming at me one at a time, so I couldn't take out more than one in a single attack. This was most troublesome. I was taking note of their attack pattern, though. They appeared to actually be coming at me five at a time, from five different directions, and then a sixth would attack. If I could just trick them into doing something, I might be able to end this.

Then the plan formed itself in my mind.

I jumped as high as I could, and just as I expected, five of the reindeer followed me into the air, surrounding me. I continued rising for a second, then just as I had expected, a sixth reindeer came at me from below.

I swung around, taking out the first five reindeer with both Keyblades. As I began to fall back down to the ground, I kicked the sixth reindeer with the sole of my foot, launching myself back into the air and sending the reindeer down to the rest of them. I turned to face the crowd of reindeer and readied my attack.

'Trinity Limit!'

I began falling quickly to the ground, spinning on my way down to increase accuracy and power. I kept my eyes on the reindeer. I had never seen fear in the eyes of Dreamless before.

Then I hit the ground. Or rather, my Keyblades hit the ground, and went into it until all that was left was the handle I was gripping.

A second passed.

Nothing.

Two seconds passed.

Nothing.

Three seconds passed.

b**ERUPTION**/b

The ground shook as if it were in agony. It started cracking where my Keyblades were dug into it, and a brilliant white light was shining out of the deep cracks. It spread slowly, and as the light shone on the Dreamless reindeer, they disappeared in a cloud of dark bubbles. One by one, they disappeared until there were only ten left. The ground screamed, and everything around the cracks in the ground burst. Now all there was, was light. The remaining reindeer burst in screams of dying agony, and I was the only living thing left. Then I fell into the crater I had created.

---

Something on my face.

What is it?

I can feel it on my hands. It's dirt.

'You planning on lying there all day?' That familiar voice said.

'Don't be so bloody stupid.' I launched myself into the air, and performed a flip to get myself out of the hole.

'That's quite a landmark you made there,' Mickey said in a half impressed voice.

I didn't feel the need to reply, since we were now facing the Evil Santa. It had begun picking some of the Dream People up, and was eating them. If they hadn't have just been dreams, I might have felt bad for them.

Mickey coughed to get my attention, 'We should get rid of it before it finds the kid.'

'Yeah. I hope you've got a plan.'

'I I_plan_/I to let you take care of it. You're the hero, not me.' Mickey turned away from me, arms crossed. This attitude of his was really starting to piss me off, he could at least I_try_/I to help.

'Fine.' I didn't feel like arguing. There were bigger things to worry about; much bigger things. Namely, a giant Santa made of darkness that was currently eating people and possibly destroying the only chance I had of saving Karolyn.

Before I realised that I was doing it, I was running at the monster. I really should have come up with a plan first. The Monster Santa stood, and grew about ten feet due to it's rather lengthy legs. Both it's legs and arms were very skinny compared with the rest of it's body, and looked like they belonged to someone who was a bit too old, and ready to die at any second. They were to be my first target.

I ran at the left leg first. A giant fist slammed in front of me, but I managed to dodge quickly and continued to my true target; the right leg. One slash at it took half of the monsters leg out, leaving a limp, saggy pile of darkness. I managed to spin round after passing the leg, and went for the other side, hoping to sever the leg completely.

Unfortunately, the other leg came crashing down in front of me, and I collided with it. I quickly regained my footing and took a slash at the leg. The yelp of pain told me I had been successful. I turned around to face the other leg, and completely severed it from The Monster Santa's body.

There was some strange black, bloodlike substance flowing out of the stump that was once a leg. I smiled.

I jumped high up in to the air and put my feet on Santa's fat stomach, and flipped myself backwards from it, facing The Monster Santa as I flew in the opposite direction.

'What are you going to do now?' Mickey shouted to me, he wouldn't have been heard over the screams of pain from Santa if he hadn't have done.

'Remember that Dream World that looked like Midgar? I picked up a few skills there.'

I pointed my Keyblades at the monster, and the tips began to light up. The tip of the Kingdom Key was an icy blue, and the tip of the Friendship Key was a fiery red. The light from the tips became an orb hovering in front of the Keyblades. A loud bang was the signal that the spell had been successful, and the orbs were replaced by a stream of red and blue light. At the end of the blue light was a beautiful blue woman, made completely of ice. Shiva - The Queen of Ice.

At the end of the red light was a giant, demon-like beast, surrounded by flames. Ifrit - The King of Fire.

The two demons flew at the monster in a flash, going straight through it. The church collapsed beneath the power of them, and as the rubble began to fall, The Monster Santa exploded in a burst of bubbles, fire, and ice, and I landed back on the ground.

'You kept that quiet.' Mickey had appeared at my side. 'And there's your prize.'

I followed his pointed finger to a mass of white, cloudy, yet equally liquid-like substance: Dream Substance. The pure Dream Substance that we had been looking for.

'Well,' Mickey said, 'Let's take it and get out of here before the kid comes back.'

I raised my hand to the Dream Substance, and it almost instantly began to float towards me and the bottle in my hand. It crept into the bottle, and I put the cap on it.

'Let's go.'

---

Death

_IDeath/I_

b**Death**/b

b**Rebirth/b**

**b?**/b

Why does this happen?

This is a NIGHTMARE.

uWhy does this happen?/u

I_Why does this happen?_/I

b**Why does this happen?**/b

Who is responsible?

uWho/u

_IWho/I_

**bWho/b**

b**Do you like to SHARE?**/b

uDo you want what is YOURS?/u

I_Do you accept RESPONSIBILITY?_/I

Those who are part of the b**KINGDOM.OF.THE.DREAM**/b are unable to awake.

Those who b**DIE**/b can not be reborn.

Ask yourself an important question:

b**DO.YOU.BELIEVE.IN.GOD?**/b

…OR b**GODS/b**?

This part of the chapter is called…

**bGHOSTS/b**

---

We had finally got it. The purest of Dream Substance. I was so please when we made our way back to the cave in the Gummi Boat.

'Do you think this is enough?' I asked Mickey, trying hard to suppress the grin on my face.

Mickey chuckled, 'That's enough for three.'

I should have been happy, but that was when I got worried. 'Do you think our weapon is ready, though? I mean really ready?'

Mickey didn't say anything, he just nodded. He knew that was enough to put me at ease.

I remembered how uneasy he had been when that Santa Monster attacked, how helpless he was. He must have been reading my mind…

'I'll explain that when we're back at the cave.'

We arrived back at the cave quite quickly. Mickey sat silently for five minutes before bothering to say anything.

'Do you remember what I told you when we began your training- When you fought that first Dreamless?'

Of course I did.

---

I remembered it clearly.

'Good. It looks like it worked.' Mickey's voice came from behind me.

I turned around in shock, I had almost entirely forgotten about him. 'What worked?'

He was silent for a while. Eventually he spoke again.

'I'll explain it.'

He sat still for a while, then continued. 'I created Kingdom Hearts; the game.'

I was stunned.

'I am responsible for that games creation.' He stood up, and began to walk around our tiny cave. 'I was a member of The Watchers, you see. The Watchers don't only have influence over dreams, but also time. It was because of this that we found out something that would change everything, we found out about the Dreamless.'

I didn't know what to say. I carried on listening.

'One of the Watchers, one that we only know as The Doctor, has the ability to go forward and backwards in time in the Dream World. He claimed to have found creatures in the future of the Dream World that were threatening the existence of both our worlds; the Dream World and the real world. You know them as the Dreamless.' He sat down again, looking uneasy. 'It was me that created the game of Kingdom Hearts by subtly introducing the ideas of Kingdom Hearts to several people through dreams, and then eventually it was created; A training manual.'

This shocked me a little too much. 'What are you talking about?'

'That game is a training manual to fight Dreamless. The name got changed along the way, somehow, but they were pretty much identical. It taught people several things about them; that the Keyblade was necessary to beat them, that they were made of Darkness, several Keyblade abilities… I really can't be bothered to go into it in that much detail.' The mouse began to look tiny as he let out a sigh.

'So that game was used to create you; The Perfect Dreamless Killer.' He had finished.

---

'About the game being used for training, right?' I asked.

'Yeah, that,' Mickey answered, 'Well, there's more to it than what I told you back then.'

I immediately began to feel uneasy. 'More like what?'

'There was something I didn't tell you.' He slid down the wall until he entered a sitting position. 'Something big.'

'Get on with it, then.'

'When I said that you were responsible for bringing the Dreamless to existence, I wasn't being entirely truthful.' His big black eyes looked up at me. 'I played my part in their creation, too. It turned out that The Doctor was being used by the Dreamless. They let him warn The Watchers about them so that I would create that game as a training manual, and so the game would influence someone into creating the Dreamless. They were kind of ensuring their own existence… through me. That's why I couldn't help you earlier, because I can't help anyone, even when I try to.'

There was only one thing I felt: Burning anger. I felt like hitting him.

I probably I_should/I_ have hit him.

So I did.

'Don't pretend you didn't deserve that.' My hand was already in pain.

He sat up. 'I won't.'

I extended my hand to help him up. He accepted, and I lifted him up a bit too hard, so he came up off the ground.

'Sorry.'

'Don't worry about it.'

I didn't like the mood in the room. 'So, what now?'

'Now, we carry on building our weapon,' Mickey replied, 'It shouldn't take too long now.'

'All right, let's go to work.'

The new pure Dream Substance was perfect for our weapon. We had more than enough, so we had to separate some of it, but eventually we moulded it into the perfect shape. It was like a large bullet, but with both ends slightly more rounded than a normal bullet. Being the perfectionist that I was, this bothered me a little.

'We should start gathering the troops, this is almost ready.' Mickey gave me an unusual thumbs up. I guessed he was feeling better after his revelation.

'Yeah?' I was a little surprised, I thought we'd have to make a few modifications.

'We just have to build it up a little to support itself after the force of firing the pure Dream Substance, and it'll be ready.'

'So, how long is that going to take?'

Mickey thought about it for a second. 'About three days.'

Three days.

_IThree days./I_

It would only be three days until I saved Karolyn. And the world.

---

Those three days didn't pass quickly enough.

Me and Mickey stood before the Dreamless Ball, with our army of Dream People behind us, awaiting the battle that was about to come. I could feel the Dream World shaking in anticipation. We would either save it, or ensure it's destruction. It all depended on if I had the power to save it.

I really hoped I did.

We had gathered Dream People from most of the Dream Worlds we had been to. There were hundreds of them, all waiting to fight to save… well, everything. There were a few I recognised from the Real World: Captain Jack Sparrow, Michael Corleone, Naruto, Monkey T. Luffy, Mulan, Sasuke, Goku, and even Jak & Dexter was there. Then there were the ones I didn't recognise. We had a fine army, all right.

'You all know what to do,' I shouted, without taking my gaze away from the Darkness Ball. I was answered with a grunt of agreement.

'And so do I,' Mickey said, 'And you?'

'Of course.'

We both summoned our Keyblades. The Kingdom Key and the Friendship Key felt different. Not in a bad way, though; they felt as if they were empowered, stronger, could do more damage. I found myself wondering if Mickey was getting the same feeling from his own Keyblade.

'If it ends here,' I said, 'thanks for taking me to that special dream world.'

'No problem,' he winked.

Silence.

It was broken by Mickey, 'You ready?'

'Of course I am.'

I was in my battle stance, my feet parted and my Keyblades at my side, ready for the fight that we were about to enter. I looked behind me, giving our army the signal, and I noticed something strange.

We had Santa on our side.

I couldn't help but chuckle.

My knees bent, and was launched at the Dreamless Ball. A single hit knocked a few Dreamless out of it and sent them flying to the ground, where a group of angry Dream People were waiting to destroy them. I felt myself smile while I was watching Captain Jack lead a pirate crew to one particularly ugly Dreamless. My smile was interrupted, though, just as I expected it to be.

In front of me, with his fist in my cheek, was an eight foot Dreamless, wearing a black coat not dissimilar to Mickey's (though not exactly the same) and a large, black crown. His eyes were brighter from the other Dreamless. I figured he was the leader.

'…out…' he whispered.

I was a little shocked at a talking Dreamless. 'So, the Dreamless have learned to talk? Can you scream, too?' I thrust my knee into it's stomach. It hadn't expected that, it thought I'd attack with my Keyblades. Regardless, my attack had no effect, and we probably looked like we were dancing in mid-air.

'…out of my…' he carried on spouting crap.

'I don't care.' I swung my Kingdom Key at him, but he dodged it effortlessly.

'…NIGHTMARE!' The Dreamless King screamed at me, and some black vomit-like substance covered me. It appeared to be pretty harmless, but it was ugly. 'MY NAME IS NIGHTMARE!'

'I said, I_I don't care._/I' I swung both Keyblades this time, and this time he didn't dodge it. Instead, two massive metal armguards appeared on his arms, and he blocked the attack with them. Then I felt his knee in my face.

I was sent crashing into the walls, and then crashing to the ground.

'Need a hand?' Mickey had appeared at my feet.

'No,' I answered, 'Stick to the plan. We could really use that right now.'

I looked around. Captain Jack Sparrow had just shot a Dreamless' eye out, Naruto and his clones were performing an Uzumaki Naruto Rendan on another Dreamless, and Mario was jumping on lots of heads. This was the strangest fight I had ever seen.

A foot to the stomach. Nightmare was back, and his foot felt like it had gotten heavier.

'Bastard,' I spat at the monster.

'BASTARD!' He copied me. 'NIGHTMARE IS A BASTARD.'

He was just like an overgrown baby.

Another foot to the stomach. And another. Then one to the chest. I could taste blood in my mouth, smell it in my nose.

Hurry, Mickey, I was thinking. Hurry, or it will be too late.

Nightmare's foot came at my face again. I wasn't going to let this one hit, though. My hand rose and grabbed the monsters foot. My grip tightened. I felt rage swell within me, I wanted to crush his foot, but I had a job to do. I pushed him back, forcing him to stumble backwards. I was back up on my feet before I knew it, and my knee was in his ribs.

Or where his ribs would have been, had he been human.

His fist hit my stomach… or maybe it was my stomach that hit is fist… but this time, his attacks had no affect on me. We couldn't hurt each other, and were evenly matched; this was going to take longer than I had hoped. I swung my Friendship Key at his head, but he dodged it easily. Even though he was inhumanly tall, he could still duck low enough to dodge it.

His other fist came at me, right for my stomach. Before I knew it was happening, my other hand rose to block his attack with the Kingdom Key.

We were locked together, neither of us able to gain an advantage on the other. Locked in an endless dance of fists and blades, blood and darkness. A beautiful dance.

I pulled my Kingdom Key back, and swung at him again. Again, he blocked it with the cold, steely shield that was protruding from his arm. I swung at him again. He blocked it again. His fist flew at my stomach, but I blocked it with my Friendship Key. I put my foot to his chest and kicked, sending him flying through the air. I followed him, but he had turned back around and was coming back at me. The steel armguard had come completely out of his arm, and was in fact a large sword, at least two thirds as big as he was.

He swung his sword at me.

'DIE LITTLE MAN!'

I lifted my Keyblades, holding them up in an cross shape, with one across the other.

'Already did.'

His sword hit my Keyblades. We both pushes against the others weapon with everything we had, hoping our weapon would break through the other.

'Hurry up, I'm ready.' It was a familiar voice; Mickey. He must have got the weapon ready.

I looked down into the wide mass of water, and saw Steamboat Willie floating towards the centre. I had less time than I thought.

Our weapons were now trapped in that endless dance again. Blue, red and black sparks were flying from the point the weapons had clashed, and we were surrounding by a transparent fire. My arms were throbbing, as were his. I couldn't finish this in time.

I put everything I had into my Keyblades. He did the same with his sword. I pushed, and pushed, until finally it ended in a bright flash.

Falling.

He was falling.

I had a little more than he had. He fell through the air and I followed. I put my Kingdom Key to his neck, and my Friendship Key to his stomach, and cut through him in both places.

He disappeared.

'Paul!' Mickey shouted, he was ready.

The Dreamless suddenly became aware of what was happening and were leaving their fights with the Dream People, making their way to the Darkness Ball to defend it. I could hear the weapon humming from the Gummi Boat. It was now directly beneath the Darkness Ball, reaching up toward it. It began to glow with a bright light as the pure Dream Substance was being prepared to fire.

It was like a mini volcano erupting as the weapon fired the pure Dream Substance up into the Ball. It shot out at an incredible speed, though it appeared as if it were in slow motion to me.

'Paul, the Dreamless are fighting back!' Mickey shouted from the boat.

He was right. Where the pure Dream Substance was colliding with the Ball, dark bubbles had began to form, trying to push the beam of light back.

I really only had one choice, even if it would cost me everything.

I jumped over to the boat. I didn't have time to say anything to Mickey, although I really should have done. A lot had happen between us. I took a large jump up the weapon, and stood atop it, where the light was shooting from it.

Then I stepped into the light.

I was pushed up in the flow of it, up towards the ball. I wasn't sure what would happen next, only that I had to do something.

Then I was inside it. The thing I had been trying to destroy; the Darkness Ball. I couldn't see anything, but I could feel it.

Feel the darkness of the Dreamless all around me, even within me, now.

I swung my Keyblades around, hitting all the Dreamless that I could feel. I swung, swiped and cut at all of it, blindly. It felt like forever.

Light. There was light beneath me, pushing through the darkness that had surrounded me. Then the light pushed through me, breaking through all the darkness of the Ball.

We had done it.

I could feel the flow of the light. It was as if I had become a part of it. It launched itself up into the streams that the Dreamless had used to get to the Dreams of people, and began to flow into the streams that led to those Dreams. It was pushing back the blood coming from the comatose ones, and flowing back into their dreams, restoring them to the way they should be.

---

'She's awake. She woke up.' The loud voices were giving her a headache. Why were they shouting? Who had woken up? Was it her?

Her eyes opened, and were almost blinded by the light coming through the window. It was a bright, sunny day, despite the masses of falling snow. What had happened?

'Karolyn?'

Yes, that was her name. She knew that much. Despite all the questions running through her mind, that was one undeniable truth; her name was Karolyn.

She looked for the source of the voices, and found it stood at the door of her little white room.

'Alan? Jonas?'

They looked at her, shocked. She could see knowledge flowing into their eyes, though. Knowledge of what had happened.

A small flash. More muffled voices. The television had been turned on.

'Breaking news here, it appears that the people all around the world who had gone into comas are waking up. So far, 19 of them are reported to be awake and alert, and all awoke in the space of five minutes. It has been a long nine months since the Dream Coma's began, and it looks like it's finally over.'

Dream Comas? Was she in one of them? I_Nine months?_/I

Had she been sleeping for that long? Really?

But how? How did this happen? And why?

She felt like she knew, but couldn't quite grasp that knowledge. Not yet.

Then a thought struck her; a thought of a boy she had only known briefly, but felt like she had known him well. A boy who was pure and strong of heart. The boy who had freed her.

The boy who had had to die to save her.

'Thank you, Paul.'

---

'Karolyn?'

Darkness. Once again, I couldn't see a thing. I could hear, though.

Sounds were coming from all directions. Blips and bleeps, sounds of computer keys being tapped. I must have been in some computer room or something. It smelled funny, too. Like a flower, but I couldn't remember what flower.

'Stand up, Paul.'

'Mickey?' A light came on above me. Mickey was stood over me, a smile on his face.

'Well done, Paul. You've saved the worlds.'

He was right, I had. I could feel it.

I didn't how I could feel it, nor did I know why. I just did. But how? What was happening?

I sat up and took a look around. Everything looked silver, and all the computers I could hear blipping and bleeping looked like they belonged to some kind of alien spaceship.

'Mickey, where are we?' I asked. I could barely speak.

'Welcome to the Watcher's Council, Paul.' He walked a few steps in front of me. 'This is where we Watchers look over the Dream World, making sure the balance between it and the Real World is maintained. You managed to save that balance.'

'Indeed,' an unfamiliar voice said, 'but you, Mickey, almost ruined that balance.'

The voice came from a small, shadowed corner of the room. A leg came out of the shadows, a long and thin leg. It was slowly followed by the body that leg belonged to, which was covered in a long black cloak, and had one of the strangest faces I had seen.

He had a silver face, with big red eyes with no pupils, two small slits for a nose. and a vertical mouth filled with large, yellow teeth. Somehow, though, he didn't appear to be ugly.

'Sir,' Mickey knelt down on to one knee. 'I have returned with the one who maintained the balance.'

'I can see that,' the man said with out moving. 'Paul, my name is Carathus Joran. I am a Watcher.'

'Watcher?' I stood up. Somehow, I was feeling pain again. 'Me and my friends, we searched for you, the Watchers.'

'That is for another time.' I had barely finished speaking when he said that. 'For now, please accept the gratitude of the Watchers.'

'But-'

'As you have done this task for us, and maintained the balance, we will give you what you most desire, and we will also give you something else.' Carathus' eyes became smaller, almost distant.

'What I most desire?' I was filled with hope. 'You'll bring me back to life?'

'That is impossible, those who die can not be reborn.' My hopes were shattered. 'But… I think you may be the first exception.'

Finally, I could go back. My eyes were feeling heavy, I felt like I was falling asleep.

'What happened to the Dreamless?' I asked.

'They are now nothing more than b**ghosts**/b. Ghosts of darkness.'

Ghosts. That was good, ghosts can't cause trouble.

'Mickey, as it was you that brought this upon us with that game, you will have to be punished.' Carathus took another few steps forward.

Mickey didn't even look up. 'Of course, sir.'

'As punishment for your crimes to the balance, you would normally be annihilated. But, considering you were being manipulated, as we all were, I have settled on a lighter punishment.' I noticed a glimmer of hope in Mickey's eyes. 'You are to go with Paul, and be his companion for the rest of his days.'

Mickey turned to me with a grin on his face, and nodded. 'I understand, sir.'

I was falling asleep.

'Also, I will give you another gift for Paul. You can only give it to him when he I_truly_/I need it. I trust you understand?'

'Of course, sir.'

Everything went black. I was falling through… something. Something light. I could feel the Real World all around me, but in a new way.

---

Cold. So cold.

I knew it was winter, but it shouldn't have been this cold.

All around me was snow. The houses were covered in it, as was the little shop on the corner. I recognised this place.

I was home.

Mickey sat up next to me. He was no longer wearing his coat, but was now wearing a black and red t shirt and shorts. I also sat up, and took a look around.

House, shops, a post box, a bin, and a huge hospital in front of me. There were people walking out. A man, a woman and…

'Karolyn!'

I stood up in such a hurry that I almost fell back down again, but I kept my balance and began to run to her. She saw me coming, I saw her drop the bag she was holding an run towards me.

I opened my arms to her, and she opened hers.

Closer. We were only a few inches apart.

Closer. Centimetres were all that separated us.

Then my arms were in hers, and hers in mine.

And then my arms went through hers.

My body followed, and went through hers. I went through her.

I went through her.

b**I went through her.**/b

I couldn't believe it. I looked at myself. I turned around and saw Karolyn looking at me in shock. What had happened?

'Mickey are we-'

'**GHOSTS**'

bIu**_THE END_**/b/I/u


End file.
